Cutting_Crew writes: "I came across an article on Wired that explains the crowd sourcing initiative between Stack Exchange, Google and the US Patent and Trademark Office. The overall purpose gives 3rd parties the ability to search and seek out prior art in an effort to derail pending patents and even invalidate patents that never should have been granted. This effort has led to the Patents on Stack Exchange where you can make a clear case about why a patent shouldn't be accepted or reversed and even submit it to the patent office(with the help of others helping you — that's the whole point!).

I started a thread there that relates to the slashdot story about Words Inc suing Blizzard over 4 patent claims 8,082,501, 7,493,558, 7,945,856 and 7,181,690 whose overall patent claim involves "System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space”. I got some good feedback and interest but it was suggested that i take one of the claims and try to offer up evidence of prior art and if I get backing I can start on the others — instead of trying to take on all four patents at once — which are slightly different in their details. If anyone is interested, I need help with coming up with prior art that I might have missed or simply don't know about in addition to the lists of prior art that I declared in my thread.

This is also a good time for all of us to look over other ridiculous software patents that have made its way onto Slashdot before so let the patent hunting begin!"